


Pedagogically Sound (Instructional: the Feedback Loop Mix)

by arysteia



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/pseuds/arysteia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantis is a <i>civilian</i> run outpost, and the military has to learn that.  The hard way if necessary.  The Ceremonial Breaking of Wills.  The Incident With the Transporters That Day.  It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pedagogically Sound (Instructional: the Feedback Loop Mix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Instructional](https://archiveofourown.org/works/86559) by [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/pseuds/seperis). 



> This story was written for Remix_Redux.

_Be firm, be fair, above all be consistent. Treat all students the same. Be willing to repeat individual lessons as often as required, until mastery is achieved._

The introduction of the Atlantis military contingent to the joys of a civilian led expedition (also known as The Ceremonial Breaking of Wills) comes most naturally, at first, to the electrical engineers and the physicists. The chemists and biologists, many of whom specialised in pure research, have too long forgotten the special hell that is a teaching lab. The botanists, too, are initially reticent, expressing a desire to extend the M4X-872 equivalent of an olive branch, but the prospect of being readmitted to the hallowed halls of Hard Science soon wins them over.

Ironically, it is the anthropologists who truly distinguish themselves, mistranslating vital passages on etiquette and protocol when under pressure, conflating various cultural practices, failing to stress the _optional_ nature of participation in fertility rituals. The week a particularly recalcitrant sergeant comes back through the gate wearing a sarong and feather boa sees their network IDs start reading _Social_ Science instead of _Soft_ for the first time since arriving in Pegasus. It's an amazing departmental unifier, and does wonders for morale. 

They are as one, however, in drawing the line at Atlantis' Ranking Military Officer. The chemists decline outright to tamper with his styling products – "There must be another way" insists one of the younger, more impressionable women. "If a man actually has good hair, you don't mess with it." "What the _hell_?" shouts Kavanagh, who shouldn't even technically be at the meeting, but has been banished by common consent from the physicists' common room. He gestures at his still singed ponytail. "Like I _said_ ," the chemist repeats, smiling sweetly. "And you have to be a member of the Cocoa Club before you touch the hot chocolate."

The marine biologists make a promising start, but crack at the last minute and post a warning about the algal bloom caused by unusually warm ocean temperatures. Sheppard catches the email right before his planned surfing trip to the mainland, though not before an entire unit of marines goes swimming off the East Pier. There's not enough calamine in the infirmary to deal with thirty six full-body rashes, and the sight of the major sunbathing on one of the balconies, as they limp back to their quarters daubed in a virulent green fruit concoction recommended by one of the Athosians, nearly causes a mutiny.

The anthropologists almost come through, arranging for Sheppard to attend the joining ceremony of a chief's daughter on M3Z-165, where it is customary for all guests to attend naked, but he just laughs and mumbles something about Betazoid weddings (earning a few grudging nods) and cheerfully complies. The sight of his toned abs and deep golden tan makes the experience more embarrassing for several members of the anthro team than it is for him, and they wash their hands of the whole affair while taking long, cold showers.

Even the engineers, who attack the case with more vigour than anyone else – no women on the team, no particular fondness for a man who only calls on them when he wants to blow something up, or when he needs them to fix something he's blown up – concede defeat. The darling of the City, Atlantis' favourite son, Sheppard sails blithely on as they do their worst. His quarters remain pristine, doors open for him as they should, and he emerges each morning well rested, showered, and sweet smelling. His, the rumour mill insists, is a truly charmed life, untouchable not only by the Wraith, but by earthly authority, as manifested by the scientists. Galvanised by his defiance, the marines take heart and begin, once more, to rebel.

"For God's sake," McKay screams at a full interdepartmental meeting. The only civilian absent is Elizabeth, who claims diplomatic immunity at such junctures and goes to bed with a good book. "I delegate _one task_ , and none of you are capable of completing it."

Zelenka smiles hesitantly. "Perhaps we should exempt him totally," he ventures. "Make it clear that his friendship with you makes him immune to punishment. Divide and conquer, yes?"

McKay looks like he's swallowed a lemon. Which in his case is particularly impressive. "No. _Moron_. All that does is make us look arbitrary and capricious. We're not a junta of Eastern bloc dictators imposing our petty whims, we're teaching these people how to behave in civilised society. My _friendship_ , and I use the term loosely, as a relationship predicated on a single football DVD and multiple instances of running and ducking requires, has nothing to do with it." 

"Then maybe you should do it yourself," Kavanagh snaps.

"I will," McKay snaps back. "Watch and learn, my young apprentices."

* * *

_Establish clear boundaries and expectations from day one. It is far easier to relax the rules after good order has been obtained, than to attempt to reinstitute discipline after habits have been formed._

John rereads the memo one last time before hitting Send All. It's taken him half the night, and three revisions, to get it done. He'd thought he had it the last time, but then Rodney had appeared from nowhere, hovering like the Angel of Death behind John's shoulder, and smiling to himself. It's more unnerving than any comment could possibly be.

"Not explicit enough?" John sighs. It's a fine line to tread, warning the Daedalus contingent of the full horror that lies in wait for them if they continue on their present path, while still maintaining a semblance of the illusion that he is not, in fact, terrified of the science division. Or, alternately, a collaborator worthy of Vichy France.

"It's fine," Rodney says thoughtfully. "I'm sure they'll get the point. And systems don't collapse the way they used to. There'll never be another episode like The Incident With the Transporters That Day. Hey, we've got chocolate fondue and Bond films down in Engineering, if you're interested."

The capital letters hit John's skull like little hammers, and he fights off a wave of residual nausea. "I'll add it as an attachment."

"Good idea. See you down there."

"Yeah. Seeya."

John turns back to the keyboard, and ponders how to distil the worst experience of his life (a life that has included being shot down twice, and a stint as a POW) into a few short paragraphs.

 _One victim_ , he begins, claiming the relative safety of pseudo-anonymity. One victim...

... truly did believe he was immune to the adolescent hazing being meted out to some of the less fortunate members of the expedition. He was unsure whether to attribute this immunity to luck, good management, natural brilliance, his burgeoning friendship with Satan, or rather Chief Scientist Rodney McKay, or the fact that several of the female scientists (and not a few of the male ones, though he affected not to notice) seemed to find him attractive. He never saw it coming, but was not above using it to his advantage. A soldier used every weapon in his arsenal, after all. Unfortunately, he was mistaken. As he discovered in no uncertain terms That Day.

That Day began well enough, extremely well in fact. John got up early, went for a five mile run, showered, changed, and headed down to the mess for breakfast. Instead of the expected oatmeal squares – _squares, had no one here heard the adage that an army marched on its stomach?_ – he arrived to a heaped plate of bacon, sausages, and real, recognisable, yolk intact, fried eggs, swimming in butter. The server intoned solemnly that there wasn't enough to go round, and he'd have to eat quickly, but that seemed a small price to pay for such bounteous good fortune.

That Day got even better as McKay and Zelenka flicked him the last of the hash browns from their table (and really he should have recognised the seventh sign of the Apocalypse right there, but hey, he _never_ sees these things coming), and he washed the whole lot down with a massive chocolate smoothie – real milk, real ice cream – promising silently to make it ten miles tomorrow. He nodded his thanks to the scientists, smiled apologetically at the marines filing in with their trays of toast and unholy breakfast cereals, and headed off to his meeting with Elizabeth.

That Day's inexorable slide downhill began when the doors to the transporter slammed shut behind him with an ominous clang instead of their usual dignified swish. There was probably about a microsecond, then, where if his reflexes had been fast enough he could have sweet talked Atlantis into letting him out. Instead, he wasted it musing on the irony of travelling a billion miles to be stuck in an elevator.

John radioed for help, and was informed tersely that there were problems with transporters all over the city, and he would have to wait. Before he could complain, his comm cut out with an ear splitting screech of static, and all the lights turned off, plunging him into an inky blackness lit only by the luminous dial of his watch. A love of the wide, open sky did not _exactly_ translate to claustrophobia, but the eerie green glow only served to emphasise the narrow confines of his prison.

That Day officially began to suck when the transporter started moving. It accelerated rapidly, passing any speed John had experienced on land within seconds, and closing quickly on those he'd sampled in the air. There was neither logic nor reason in the pattern of its movement, swinging wildly from one end of Atlantis to the other before settling into a couple of tight circles around the command section. The second time round the inertial dampeners failed, tossing John across the tiny space like a toy, his shoulder impacting painfully with the wall. The transporter lurched to a halt, remaining stationary just long enough for him to stagger to his feet, then it started up again, faster than ever.

Six journeys between the North and South piers in the space of forty five seconds, punctuated by a couple of multi-storey drops, and John's stomach gave up the uneven battle. Already on his knees, he leaned over miserably and threw up in a corner. The Atlantis Early Bird Special tasted a lot less pleasant coming up than it had going down. And wasn't vomit in a confined space, pulling a couple of gees, just charming? Definitely something that had to be experienced to be believed.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was apparently, according to John's watch, only ninety seven minutes, the transporter came to a halt. He stayed where he'd been for at least the last half hour, namely in a foetal position on the floor, head still spinning, stomach still heaving. Eventually the whir in his head died down enough for him to make out a murmur beyond the closed doors.

"Hello?" he croaked. "Is there anybody there?"

"Yes, yes, Major," Zelenka sang happily, like an elf on crack. "We have come to rescue you."

"Oh, thank God." John had never been more sincerely grateful for anything in his life. "Can you open the doors?"

"I'm afraid not. The circuits have overheated, you see."

John didn't see. He couldn't see anything, in fact, except a garish pink and orange afterimage on his retinas from pressing his palms too hard against his eyes.

"We have to wait for them to cool."

"Okay." John was proud his voice only wobbled a little. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Oh, no. We have freed others almost immediately. You are last one left."

"Oh. Where's McKay? Can't he come help?"

Zelenka sighed, a little huff of breath that carried clearly through the sealed doors. "And what could he do, Major, that we cannot? He is not Superman to freeze the circuits with his breath."

"No," John whispered. "I know. But I really need to go to the bathroom."

He was sure he heard a stifled giggle at that point.

"My sympathies, Major," Zelenka said primly. "But he is needed elsewhere. We cannot have the appearance of favouritism, you understand. How would it look to your men?"

John would have laid odds it couldn't possibly look worse than he did at that moment: uniform covered in vomit, blood trickling out of his mouth where he'd bitten his tongue, tears and snot streaming down his face, and a rapidly blackening eye.

"Never mind," he managed, and passed out.

When he came to, some time later, he was still lying in a pool of his own bodily fluids, and McKay was standing over him, eating a powerbar with savage abandon.

"Ah, Major," McKay said cheerfully. And loudly. "Good to see you still in one piece."

"Help. Me." John gritted out through clenched teeth.

"Now, now, Major, no need to get testy." McKay extended a hand and pulled John roughly to his feet. "Oh, my God, is that _urine_? I know Zelenka said..."

"No!" John shouted, doubling over again from the pain rocketing through his head. "It's hydraulic fluid! The conduits are leaking." He was even pretty sure he was telling the truth.

"Well, good. Good." McKay was starting to look guilty. "I wouldn't... If you want to get cleaned up, we're showing a movie in the lab. There's more ice cream."

At least when John threw up again, he managed to get it on McKay's shoes...

No, John reflects, highlighting and deleting the entire section, some stories are just too humiliating to share, even in the interests of education and the good of the many. The new recruits will have to take their chances with the memo as is. The major, Lorne, seems bright enough. He should be able to read between the lines. And if not, he'll learn soon enough.

* * *

_Avoid disciplining individual students in front of the group; it is counterproductive. Instruction in private is better received by a shy or easily embarrassed student, and removes an attention seeker from his audience._

Stackhouse and Taylor make a point of pitching their tent the moment they've secured a perimeter on M9W-673, not stopping for food, or even water, despite the scorching heat. Lorne realises why as soon as he's rehydrated his brain, and McKay asks him which side he'd prefer to sleep on.

"I'll sleep outside," he snaps.

McKay shrugs. "Whatever, Major. The temperature drops to minus five at night though. That's negative forty for you."

Crap.

"Yeah, okay." Lorne runs a hand through his blue striped hair. "But you touch me and I'll break your arms."

McKay sniffs haughtily. "I can't imagine why I'd ever want to."

"Yeah, wrong major," Lorne mutters.

" _What?_ "

"No, that's right, he's a colonel now," Lorne continues, unable to stop his mouth. He'll plead insanity at his court martial – he hasn't slept in weeks, he's probably caught the plague from all the raw sewage seeping into his quarters, and the constant mental torment he's suffered must count as cruel and unusual punishment, surely. 

McKay looks like someone's just told him he's being transferred back to Earth, to teach undergraduate physics in _New Zealand_.

"You _did not_ just say what I thought you just said." 

The human will to self preservation kicks in at last. "No. No, I didn't."

McKay's will is probably stronger. "I think you did. Is _that_ what's been bothering you, you think Sheppard's _gay_?"

"You eat off his plate!" Lorne exclaims. Oh, _God_ , the torment will _never end_. Perhaps McKay will just kill him here and put him out of his misery. Stackhouse and Taylor must have heard the commotion by now, but they've evidently decided discretion is the better part of valour.

For perhaps the first time in his life, McKay is speechless.

"And it's not just sausages! I've seen you eat his _eggs_!" Lorne shouts. He's going to be buried in a shallow grave and reported MIA; he may as well go out with a bang.

"Oh. Well." McKay's voice is steady, but Lorne can tell he's upset. It doesn't give him the sense of satisfaction he'd expected. "I forgot that in the States that means you're married. In Canada it makes you friends. I thought you military types knew about _friendship_. Risking your _lives_ for each other, and all that." 

Jesus. "Look, I don't... I mean, if you are..."

"I thought you weren't allowed to ask."

"I'm not asking." This is serious, and they both know it. "I'm not. And you haven't told me anything. I just want you to give me a break. I'm not an asshole."

McKay looks sceptical.

"Well, okay. But I'm not that _kind_ of asshole." 

McKay ignores him. "Colonel Sheppard's a good commander. He'd die for any one of us. And he's a good friend. I don't have many, I won't risk losing him. But he'll be a good friend to you too, if you give him a chance."

"Like you gave me a chance?" Six weeks of torture tells. "Like you gave any of us interlopers a chance, you and your little closed world?"

"We would have." McKay sounds sad rather than angry now. "We were glad to have you. Until we heard the things you were saying. About John. About Elizabeth."

"People... talk," Lorne says, flushing red. It's never occurred to him before that the scientists might _know_.

"Talk doesn't mean anything, Major."

True enough. Except... "You do favour him though, Doctor. Sheppard. It isn't fair. You'd never treat him the way you've treated us."

McKay laughs suddenly, with real humour. "I'm guessing The Incident didn't make it into the memo then."

"Incident?"

"That ass. How obvious did I have to be?"

"McKay?"

"Never mind." Abruptly, McKay drops to his knees and starts rummaging around in his pack. "Come on, use your finely honed military skills to make me a hot chocolate, and I'll tell you a story that'll put your plumbing issues in perspective."

It could be a trick, but he seems sincere. Lorne takes a deep breath, and makes a choice.

"They won't anymore. Talk, I mean."

McKay just smiles.


End file.
